>> i believe i acted properly and within the law at all times. >> chris collins will be in for a rough road here. >> we have triple digit temperatures, a red flag warning. >> people have parked their cars in their driveway nose out ready to go. >> that was hard to see because you could tell where the staircase was, trying to picture what our home was like. >> announcer: this is "new day" with alisyn camerota and john berman. >> good morning, welcome to "new day," thursday, august 9, 8:00 in the east. alisyn off. erica hill still with me two hours in the show which is a good sign. >> it's a good sign. >> the back-and-forth between the president's legal team and the special counsel has been going on for months. the president has talked publicly about wanting to answer questions, that's his claim, but the rubber may be hitting the road. the trump team submitted a counteroffer to robert mueller trying to limit the scope of potential interview questions to

avoid what they call a perjury trap -- in other words, they're concerned about the president getting caught lying. rudy giuliani says the investigation should end in the next three weeks but if it drags on until november, he claims republicans will benefit politically. meantime, president trump's first supporter in congress also facing legal trouble this morning. new york republican chris collins arrested for an alleged insider trading scheme. he faces up to 150 years in prison and he's not the only one. his song among the others named in that indictment. collins is vowing to clear his name and run for reelection. let's bring in "new york times" white house correspondent maggie haberman and cnn chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin. as we look at this, if we start with mueller, based on your reporting, maggie, where do we stant at this point in terms of how quickly there could be some sort of resolution here between mueller and giuliani and the legal team for donald trump. >> i think you can expect that this is going to be one of the final exchanges between team

trump and mueller on this. giuliani threw out the date of september 1 sayingnks this needs to be done by this date because of doj guidelines. then there comes the question of is there a subpoena fight? does mueller try to subpoena the president? there are some who think it's not likely, there arors who think it is likelier than not. i think we have seen is what mueller is up to is not visible to most of souse a lot of find reading is what trump's team has been engaging in and they may prove to be right but given how many other witnesses mueller hasn't spoken to, he hasn't spoken to don jr. as far as we understand, i don't think he has interviewed roger stone yet. there is a lot of work left to

do. they've been creating a paper trail over several months where they can say look we did try to have an interview with you, it's been eight months now. if they wanted to sit for an interview they could have and for rudy giuliani to say, you know, you can't ask him questions about james comey, that's a central fact so that's like saying and you can't ask questions about russians so they're never going agree. >> you can't say words outloud, can't drink water, can't breathe air. >> if you make certain conditions you know will be poison pills yes it won't go very far. >> speak specifically before we get to the legal ramifications about what giuliani and the president's lawyers want to shape in terms of obstruction specifically. >> they want to deal with that as little as possible, their argument has been it's not obstruction for a variety of reasons, one of which is that there was no active proceeding going on that he would have been obstructing, the tweets are his

opinions. the tweets are an interesting subset because the white house and the doj has said they consider his tweets to be official president sial statemes but we're seeing over and over as a rationalization as that's just how he talks. he's just talking about firing sessions, first'm right. there is a real question of what you lose as a private citizen that trump has not been willing to give into so on obstruction i don't think their argument has changed. they're just not validating it in their minds. i don't know that mueller is going to see it that way. >> it's fascinating, what you give up as a private citizen when you become president and there's also what this president believes you gain when you take that oath of office and in many ways it's not only to not have to answer certain questions but to answer to certain valid issues and questions and legal concerns. >> well, one of the core

arguments that the president's legal team has made is that the there is a big distinction between actions taken while he is president and actions taken during the campaign and their view is under article two of the constitution which defines the president's power. you can't infire into the decision-making process of the president about whether to fire comey. one of the big precedents here is the "clinton v. jones" case, the paula jones case where the supreme court said bill clinton had to give a deposition in the civil case that paula jones filed against him and the way that the trump team has evaluated that case is, well, that was because -- the reason the supreme court allowed that inquiry is because it dealt with activities before bill clinton was president. it's a totally different story if they want to ask about what he did when he was president.

whether that's a meaningful legal distinction i don't think i know. but that's a line that the trump legal team is trying to draw. >> jeffrey, why is the special counsel even engaged in this game at this point? why not just say we've been at this for eight months, i'm tired of it, here's your subpoena. >> because the president is in a different legal position than anyone else. any prosecutor in the country can't just decide to send a subpoena of the president of the united states. there is law that suggests if you, a prosecutor, can get information from a different source rather than the president you should go to that source. there's a case involving mike espy, secretary of agriculture under clinton. so the mural team is trying to show their good faith, that they are not just willy-nilly demanding donald trump come before a grand jury.

they are spending a lot of time proving it. i mean, i find this -- that this has gone an absurdly long time this single negotiation, we are talking nearly a year on this issue at this point but i do think -- i agree with maggie. i think the issue is coming to a head and by september 1 we will know whether there will be a voluntary interview and we'll probably know whether there will be a subpoena or not. >> if there were to be a subpoena based on that september 1 date in everything we're talking about, is this a subpoena that you would imagine would come after the election? >> well, i think -- no, i think the subpoena would come right away, but the legal fight would go on for months. i mean, i think you'd likely have a supreme court resolution of the subpoena by the end of june of next year the way the supreme court term always ends at the end of june. that just puts this off into a

whole other realm because would mueller file a report while that issue was still outstanding? so i think there are a lot of factors that will go into whether to file a subpoena and the length of the fight is one of them. >> maggie, you were here yesterday and you were talking about the political games being played by the president's team over the timing. >> i don't think i said political games but go ahead. >> not games -- >> well, that's an important word. >> political strategy. but hang on, you said it here yesterday morning and then almost as if on cue rudy giuliani all over the place yesterday was talking about the timing and if we have that sound i want to play that. >> the reality is he doesn't need to ask a single question on obstruction, he has all the answers. they're not going to change. the president is not going to change his testimony so stop the nonsense. you are trying to trap him into perjury because you don't have a

ca case. >> you don't want to run into the november elections so back up from that. this should be over with by september 1. we have now given him an answer. he obviously should take a few days to consider it but we should get this resolved. if there's going to be an interview, let's have it. >> i think it's a testament to reporting. you were eight hours of giuliani saying it out load, but what is the strategy? >> i think it what's we talked about in terms of the legal component which is they wanted to have laid out the case by which they will have been reasonable. i think if a subpoena is issues -- look, they here in a situation they don't want to be in so i don't think it's a game, i think they are trying to get this dealt with as quickly as possible with as little damage to the president as possible and they have a strategy to do that. they believe -- some of them -- a that if there is a subpoena that is filed that it will be base riling for the president, incentive for turnout, a reason

that republican voters who have said -- my colleague and yours, alex burns from the "new york times" covered the ohio special election and voters said to him we have to protect the president. those who were voting republican on tuesday so i think they're hoping they can boost turnout. the problem is there's a negative polarization effect where it could have an equally base-riling impact on already excited and enthusiastic democrats so i don't know you can game out how it will play. there's no world in which any of this is good for the president. it's just not. >> that's the fascinating point that at this point no matter how it's trying to be spun in the court of public opinion which rudy giuliani is doing on a daily basis, it doesn't end looking good for the president. >> but it does in the terms of court of public opinion if from this respect. the president is different, you don't just file a subpoena against the president and according to doj you don't indict a sitting president and

according to team trump they have been given assurances that guideline will be paid attention to and that's an important thing to bear in mind. >> jeff toobin, you get the last word. >> i think this thing should get resolved. i think this is crazy we are still talking about whether the president will give a voluntary interview months and months after mueller and trump's team have been talking about it. it shows a lot of patience on mueller's part but enough is enough, just get it done one way or another. >> jeffrey, maggie, thank you very much. this will make for an interesting september. >> yes, it will and the movie is going to be amazing when it's finally made. who does have the president's ear? an eye opening report says three friends at mardi gras are influencing policy at the v.a. how so? how do things happen at mar-a-lago? we have maggie, we'll ask her. g. commanded armies...

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>> the charges that have been levied against me are meritless and i will mount a vigorous defense in court to clear my name. i look forward to being fully vindicated and exonerated ending any and all question to my affiliation. >> chris collins defiant in the face of insider trading charges vowing to clear his name and run for reelection in the fall.

maggie. the indictment itself is fairly damning as most legal minds have said but when you look at what's happening with chris collins and paul manafort and the people around the president who was only going to have the best people in his orbit and collins was the first to stand up and say i wholeheartedly support donald trump for president. is this trickling into donald trump? how much is it affecting him? there were rumblings that the tweets we were seeing were related to manafort going to trial? >> i think it was related to among manafort and other things and i think there's an assumption president trump's behavior is predicated on a set of facts that relate to whatever you're seeing and it doesn't necessarily. it can be that he is somebody who is prone to a lot of anxiety around certain things and his reactions tend to be outsided when he feels like something might be near him but only he knows what the facts are, we don't know but i don't assume because he's tweeting it means he thinks his children are about to get indicted and i think

that's an important point to remember. i do think the swirl and confluence of events, the manafort trial, us t discussion over an interview, michael cohen emerging as a potential threat to the president and there were reports that started here that michael cohen may have information about whether don jr. told his father about the meeting in trump tower which both trump and his von denied and we don't know where that goes but that is problematic. these things are -- i think chris collins is more problemat problematic. he's in a heavily republican-leaning district. he may still win. he was indicted before.

there's a lot of muck and so the chris collins piece adds to that. republicans running in november don't want to be asked about chris collins and they're going to be. >> it may matter less in his district than in surrounding districts and i don't know if we still have the picture here, the fact that chris collins allegedly took the phone call on this stock when he was at the white house. >> that's bad. >> coincidental but a tough picture for republicans to deal with. now we're talking about the issue of who has influence. propublica has a report that discusses how these three friends of the presidents who go to mar-a-lago have influence over the v.a. they've been giving advice about the v.a., representatives of the v.a. have been flown down to mar-a-lago to meet with them. we're talking about ike perlmutter, a big mucky muck at marvel entertainment.

also bruce moskowitz, a palm beach doctor. >> good of you to push that out there. >> "the avengers" may be influencing v.a. policy. and mark sherman, a lawyer also. they're influencing policy at mar-a-lago. they have no official position here. what goes on? >> well, whether it's mar-a-lago or bedminster or aspects of trump tower, what you have is this unofficial shadow government around donald trump which is what a lot of us who covered the campaign thought was a possibility when he got elected. what his advisers have tried to do is down play the influence of these folks, these are just people he sees on the weekend, ike pearl mutter is just a friend whose influence we like to see. no. that was incredibly good reporting by propublica. what you saw was they were running it. this wasn't just input from time to time when the president is down in florida.

there was outsourcing secretly a government function to a group of privatized folks, lawyers, a filmmaker and producer. one lawyer who had at least some connection to wanting to get his sons' technology used by the v.a. it raises all kinds of questions and you have to assume this is notable t only agency where this is going on. one of the things that i think has been deleterious on the trump reporting is we're so focused on the bouncing be of donald trump, there's a lot going on in the agencies that we're not seeing. >> how much of that is starting to come out? the reporting is there. the "new york times" -- we have teams working on this everyday. maybe i should phrase in the a different way. coming out in a way you think it's resonating and sticking with the american people and they're seeing that shiny object which is very important and able to process all things at once.

>> i think there is such a fire hydrant of information being thrown at voters that i think voters have started to tune it out and i'm not sure it breaks through. i think after we see what happens in the midterms things may change, we will be heading into a presidential election cycle. people will pay more attention. i don't know how much of this gets into the public conscience but we had the daily drip of scott pruitt at the epa and for voters that turned in to -- reporters could barely keep up so i think voters were having a hard time as well. i'm not sure how much this impacts voter sentiment but i think the reason why we do this is not voter sentiment, it's government accountability. >> let me read a statement about this from these gentlemen. at all times we offered our help and advice on a voluntary basis seeking nothing at all in return. while we were always willing to their our thoughts we did not implement any type of policy or possess authority over agency decisions or direct government

officials to take actions. to the extent anyone thought our role was anything other than that, we don't believe it was a result of anything we said or did. just remember, mar-a-lago, i don't know what the annual dues but the initiation fees are $200,000 and the pooh whom are members get to rub elbows with the president. >> you get to say you're influencing v.a. policy. that's value enough. you get to have the president's ear. that's value enough and i don't understand how they can argue they were not involved. one of the gentlemen was involved in regular conference calls. that's not not being involved. that's not just telling the president, this was telling the bureaucrats running the agency what to do being involved in daily policy. i realize they weren't commanding all aspects of it but they were significantly involved. it always raised questions about why ike perlmutter was so deeply connected in what was going on in this election of a v.a. secretary. this goes well beyond that. >> maggie haberman, great to

have you here with us today. appreciate it. >> thanks, maggie. a stunning political upset. a ferguson city councilman will be the next county prosecutor. you'll hear why his victory means so much. that's next. ha baby. (vo) it's being there when you're needed most. he's the one. (vo love is knowing... it was meant to be. and love always keeps you safe. (vo) love is why we built a car you can trust for a long time. the all-new subaru impreza sedan and five-door. a car you can love no matter what road you're on. the subaru impreza. more than a car, it's a subaru. right now, get 0% apr financing on the 2018 subaru impreza. the new united explorer card hooks me up. getting more for getting away. traveling lighter. getting settled. rewarded! learn more at theexplorercard.com alice loves the smell of gain so much, she wished it came in a fabric softener too.

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. this week, a st. louis county processor faced his first election since the ferguson unrest and he was upset by a councilman from ferguson who promised to reform the criminal justice system. joining us now, wesley bell, who will run unopposed in november. good to have you with us, congratulations. >> thank you for having me. >> this is something we should point out that is near and dear to you. your father is a police officer, you've been a public defender. there are so many conversations that have been had in this country in the last several years because of events like what happened with michael brown and discussions of the community

and a look of involvement. what do you think will change as you move forward? >> one thing i've learned as a city councilman in ferguson is that you cannot ignore the public engagement component of public service. you have to be vulnerable to your constituents and that's the way to build credibility and trust because at the ends of the day the justice system is predicated on trust so we're going to assign our prosecutors geographically so they know the communities they serve and we'll work on that trust component through communication and transparency. >> part of that transparency and communication comes down to facts and day which doesn't sound like something that would really build a connection and yet it's something you say has been seriously lacking. >> yeah, absolutely.

one thing the current administration has not done is keep good data because as any data wonks know, if you don't track the data, you don't know what you're doing well or not as good so we're going to make sure we track data so we know what we're doing and we're going to make it public so we can evaluate it, analyze it and so that outside organizations can do the same because again ten years from now we're going to find new research that leads us in different directions that are going to keep st. louis county safer and help people and we have to be open minded but we have to track data nord to make sure what we're doing is effective. >> you've said justice is about consistency. >> absolutely. >> where do you think it's been lacking up to this point? >> well, i think wherever you look at the justice system, when you start changing the rules or

changing the policies in particular cases, you know, that makes people start to question the process and so we're going to create policies that will be ready and available to the public on day one. we'll make sure that everyone knows what the score card is, what it looks like so they know what we're doing before anything, god forbid, negative or bad happens so we just want to be more open, more transparent and again, i think that's where you build trust and how you start getting more trust in your justice system. >> looking specifically at what did or did not happen in the case of michael brown, four years today. i know you've been asked how you would have handled it differently. one of the things you brought up is appointing a special prosecutor. why i do you believe that was necessary in this particular case? >> well, you know, as people know, my dad is -- and i have to

correct you, he's a retired police officer. he reminds me of that everyday. but there's a relationship between the prosecutor's office and law enforcement. as a municipal court prosecutor, i work with officers all the time. some of my best friends are officers and so there's an inherent conflict of interest because if you tell me one of my friends committed a crime i think anyone naturally will disbelieve it so we have to have some objectivity. we have to make sure we're transparent but also the appearance of impropriety and so when friends are investigating friends of course we'll question it. so in cases involving police shootings, yes. there should be a special prosecutor but also there should be a public policy created so the public knows how to handle those cases before something like that happens. >> four years on, just give us a sense. we're sitting here in new york.

you have such a better understanding and obviously on-the-ground knowledge of what the situation is today. what has changed in these last four years not only in terms of involvement with the community but how the community is doing? >> what i can say in ferguson and the region is that a lot of uncomfortable conversations have been had and people are much more comfortable with this is those uncomfortable spaces, if you will. and i think that's a good thing because many issues we face as a society are for a lack of real discussion and education and that breeds ignorance so we have to be able to talk about implicit bias, we have have talk about cultural sensitivity and these issues because that's the only way we'll move our region, our country forward in a meaningful way so that's one thing that i'm proud about in ferguson but also in the st.

louis area is that many people are more knowledgeable about these kienlds of issues. doesn't mean we don't have more work to do but those conversations are being had. >> so much can begin with a conversation. wesley bell, thank you. >> thank you, erica. red tide devastating florida's sea life. who or what is to blame? look at these pictures. bill weir got a firsthand look. he joins us next. ♪ -morning. -morning.

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i do count on pg&e to keep our firefighters safe. that's why we ask for their help. breaking news out of california where crews are racing to contain wildfires burning across the state. in southern california the fast moving holy fire has triggered mandatory evacuation orders for 20,000 people. the flames are burning dangerously close to homes. at this hour the fire only 5% contained. meantime, forest gordon clark, accused of setting the fire, is scheduled to appear in court today. he faces an array of charges including suspicion of felony arson. scientists are searching for the smoking gun in a deadly red tide outbreak along florida's gulf coast. it's the worst toxic algae bloom in recent memory, wiping out

dolphins, sea turtles, other marine life by the thousands so could we be to blame? bill weir is live in ft. myers, florida, with more. i'm guessing there's at least some culpability, bill. >> well, absolutely. scientists are trying to figure out just that. this is an economic problem in addition to an emotional one. beaches are filled with european tourists, august is their holiday season but the beach was covered with dead fish, grouper, horseshoe grab, eels stinking under the hot sun. they're cleaning up as fast as they can but the question is is this the new normal thanks to the development and farming practices in the sunshine state? normally a voyage like this is filled with relaxed anticipation but these days a trip off of florida's gulf coast brings boatfuls of dread. toxic algae is blooming like mad

and you can see and smell the result everywhere -- on shore and off. a dolphin sighting that would normally inspire wonder -- >> two right there. >> reporter: now only makes you worry. there he is, he's right here. look at this. wow you can really feel it in your nostrils and your sinuses and the back of your throat. it's like a mild pepper spray when this algae gets up in the air and so if we can feel that discomfort, you have to wonder what it's liking to a dolphin in a red tide like this. their blow hole is inches beneath the surface. 90 miles up the coast, they just found two dolphins that could not survive this epic red tide but more shocking are the beaches with drift piles of rotting dead fish stretching to the horizon. a visit to the marine biologist at florida gulf coast university is like a visit to the morgue and these are just two of more than 400 sea hurtles found in

this area alone. >> this one is just a juvenile. >> makes your heart hurt, doesn't it? >> it -- you go through stages, hurts, and then you're angry. >> this is the villain, this is the red tide. >> and this down here on the bottom. >> reporter: the algae that causes red tides occurs naturally in salt water but human activity on land can make the situation much, much worse. >> they love night general and phosphorous. >> reporter: which are fertilizers? >> yes. >> reporter: that's burning sugar? >> processing. >> reporter: generations of sugar cane farming has altered the chemistry of like okeechobee and the health of the everglades. in wet season, florida dumps a massive amount of watt into the most delicate ecosystems while in dry season that water is diverted to farms and cities -- great for the economy, horrible for the environment. >> you have natural phenomenon

called red tide as mike said but you have the night general coming in and giving it a booster shot. >> reporter: now scientists from florida gulf coast university are testing water up to 20 miles offshore looking for the definitive proof that america's sugar habit is making red tides worse. you're looking for the smoking gun? >> i'm looking for the smoking gun. i think we also have to realize that collectively we got to this point. it took 70 years, 80 years to get to where we are now around it will take a while to work our way out of it. >> reporter: the beach should be full of tourists. i find only cleanup crews, many of them unpaid volunteers. . you live in tennessee. >> absolutely. >> reporter: did you come out here just to do this? >> absolutely. >> reporter: really? >> i do. >> reporter: have you seen red tides this bad before? >> i have not. >> reporter: who's to blame, do you think? >> i think we all are to blame,

to be honest. we all play a role in this one way or the other. i think it goes up the chain and all the way down. i think we need to come together, figure it out and let the scientists do what they can do and try to get to the bottom of it. >> you see those pictures, it does hurt your heart. the question, obviously, the sugar industry, have they had any reaction to this developing situation we're seeing there? >> oh, yes. oh, yes. they have devoted an entire web site to pushing back to their critics saying we share in the frustration over the lake okeechobee discharges. the company said we want to collaborate in finding solutions but that these radicals are blaming a single company, u.s. sugar, for systemic regional problems wrought by over 100 years of change is utterly ridiculous. they won't make mr. friends in the environmental community by branding them as radicals, people who do care about this

marine life. but this company has enormous political clout down here. the republican-led legislature, pro-growth legislature very supportive of all their efforts in the everglades. but to be fair there's also a ton of fertilizer pouring out of the mississippi river into the gulf of mexico. so this is a collective problem. we all contribute to this as that guy on the beach said at the end. between the red tide here, the california wild fires, 90 degree temperatures above the arctic circle feels like the planet is trying to tell us something. >> yeah, using a loud voice. >> spanning the globe. south dakota down in ft. myers florida. the family of a man killed in an officer-involved shooting in nashville is speaking out. the attorney for the family of daniel hambrick and his mother says newly released video shows deadly forceas not necessary. >> they shot him in the back.

the police officer fired four times, three of those bullets ripped daniel apart. he fell to the ground. >> i'm very hurt about my son and i just want justice. >> the video shows hambrick running away from an officer and then going down after being shot from behind. police say hambrick emerged from a traffic stop with a gun. the tennessee bureau of investigation says police were investigating stolen vehicles in the area at the time. they say hambrick fled from police before during an earlier stop. hambrick's family and the newspaper have asked the fbi to begin a civil rights investigation into the case and conduct a review of the nashville police department. rudy giuliani says dragging out moourm pgs negotiations w s will -- robert mueller negotiations will help the gop in the midterm.

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if negotiations over president trump's special counsel interview drag on, rudy giuliani says the republican party could benefit politically. let's get the bottom line. cnn chief political correspondent dana bash here with us in studio. i have to ask because you are a news machine, where are we this morning? you helped break this story yesterday and over the last few days. where do these negotiations stand? >> they're in waiting mode. when i say "they" i mean the trump legal team. the last time the president's legal team sent over a counteroffer to robert mueller, they didn't hear back for weeks so what we're hearing from rudy giuliani and others in the legal team about saying let's do this about the september 1 date is in large part an attempt to make sure that doesn't happen now. although the reality is, that's the sort of public line privately as you were alluding to that rudy giuliani and other

members on the political side of the trump team don't think it would be the end of the world if it dragged on. >> no, and even not so privately. that's in your reporting. this is what rudy giuliani is telling you that this could be -- and i believe the quote was it could be a great let's say the president moment if this does continue on. this only helps the president in terms of the base. >> and so i was -- we were trying to figure out what was going on inside the trump legal team. and there was a split. there are certainly members of the legal team who want this done and then others who have a political bent, a la rudy giuliani and jay sekulow, who see the bigger picture for the midterms and you're right, i asked giuliani about it and hiss response was candid. he said when i first got involved i would have told you not testifying would be the

right legal strategy -- oh, you have it up there. but then hurt politically. now i'm thinking the continuance of the investigation would help because people are getting tired of it and the president needs something to energize his voters because the democrats look like they're energized. nothing would energize republicans more than let's save the president. that is something that is energizing for republicans at a time when they are not even as close to energized as democrats but it could have the -- the other side of the coin is that it could also energize democrats even. >> how do you like the magic in television when we have up on the screen the words you're saying. >> the crack "new day" team. >> there is a one-sided nature to this supposed negotiation that's going on right now which is rudy giuliani's at the president's legal team say a

loot in public. then there's the moment that's representative of the whole thing that one of the president's lawyers is interviewing another one of the president's lawyers on his radio show. jay sekulow interviewing rudy giuliani about this negotiation. that shows what this is all about. this is one-sided theater for a cause to make a political point. >> it is because they feel like they don't have any choice because they are in the political arena and robert mueller and his team are not. they are working on an investigation and, of course, they're aware of politics because you have to be living under a rock not to but that's not the way they're conducting their investigation but the idea of it being one sided it what's going on in closed doors. that's another thing the president's legal team concedes readily that the mueller team are the ones who are running all

the shots and they control the question of whether there will be an interview. let's bottom line it. whether or not this is going to be dragged out with a subpoena fight. the trump team has no idea if there will be a subpoena, they're betting not but it's a gamble or whether mueller will write a report and say i'm done, i won't do this. they have no idea. they're operating in the dark doing the best they can. >> it's fascinating and trying to figure out what the mueller team is doing is a lost cause. i'm curious as we move forward. we note the president was happy wednesday morning with the way things turned out. he was touting it, there was a little pushback in the way the president was couching things but he wants to get out there. he believes he is help fful and this is his happy place to stump for candidates. not everybody in his orbit, though, feels that way.

how is that push/pull working out? >> this is about the most traditional push/pull we've see seen. how many times since we've been covering politics have we seen presidents want to get out or not want to get out and candidates depending on where the president is in popularity like no thank you or please please come. in this case, unlike probably anybody we've seen since bill clint clinton, this president, it's his oxygen to do these rallies and perform and to feed off the voters who are there and his reporters. he has told -- my reporting is he has told his political aides he would be happy if he did multiple rallies a day. the question is where is he going go? he can go to north dakota where he won by double digits and there's an intense senate race.

same goes for west virginia and indiana but when you look at house races where the control of the house will be decided in these suburbs, what we learned from ohio this week is that the suburbs are not a happy place when it comes to donald trump. >> it may be donald trump help ed beat roy balderson at end but the only reason it was successful at saul because of president trump and that's the conundrum. dana bash, come back everyday. >> all right. >> that was easy. > >> rudy giuliani is say it be that easy for me? late night laughs, do it. >> trump's lawyers are have rejected robert mueller's terms for an interview. apparently mural refused trump's request for a phone a friend if he gets stuck. [ laughter ] >> i heard donald trump jr. called into a radio show the other day but when they asked about his trump tower meeting

with the russians his phone had technical difficulties. [ laughter ] or as vladimir putin put it, "you're welcome." [ laughter ] >> cbs news has exclusive footage of collins on the phone at the picnic. there he is in the circle on the phone right there, presumably calling his son. now, while cbs news has acquired the video, the "late show" has acquired the audio. [ laughter and applause ] jim, enhance. >> hello? sell! sell! sell! sell! sell! this is chris collins! sell, sell! we'll never get caught! sell! [ laughter ] >> it's hard to hear but i think he's saying sell. >> there we go. there you have it. >> we'll leave that there for you and you're welcome. cnn newsroom with poppy harlow picks up after this break. i receive travel rewards. going new places. (oh!)

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pg&e wants you to plan ahead by mapping out escape routes and preparing a go kit, in case you need to get out quickly. for more information on how to be prepared and keep your family safe, visit pge.com/safety. top of the hour, good morning everyone. i'm poppy harlow in new york. the special counsel wants to question the president and the president, from all indications, is ready, maybe even eager to comply. with the latest counteroffer from rudy giuliani sitting on rural's desk, three questions are looming larger than ever -- one, will an under oath face-to-face